If BP is a good choice for abstinence spokesperson, can we expect Michael Vick slugging for the ASPCA soon?

I remember back in high school we were given a talk on the dangers of drunk driving by a guy who killed 3 people while driving drunk. I think the message he was trying to get across was 'don't do something stupid like I did'.

She's been studying for her SATs? Points for "canard" and "credulity"!

The Palins benefit so much from attention from the asshats of the media, Sullivan and Olbermann in particular. Any media attention that might be reasonable and called for becomes suspect just by association.

I watched Michael Vick addressing a high school gym full of young people telling them how he did something wrong and that he was ashamed of himself for doing what he did to those dogs. He was on the road to earn his classiness and manliness awards. He appeared to understand that he had to earn it.

MM's right, she's not a kid. I've never particularly liked it when the press infantilizes our fighting men and women (who are often about Bristol's age). But she's still young enough that the sight of a mature man old enough to be her grandfather attacking her is rather offensive.

From what I can tell, Bristol Palin is a nice young woman, who is using her unsought celebrity in a way she considers helpful to others. Even if one disagrees with the form of her help, calling her "the Worst Person in the World" (even in an admittedly hyperbolic way) is just inappropriate. If she's the "worst person in the world", what does that make Olbermann, who is evidently even worse than her? Pond scum?

Any media attention that might be reasonable and called for becomes suspect just by association.

Beth don't you think its bizzare that Palin is the only former VP candidate, a failed one at that, that ever aroused as much vitriol from the left? Why? I mean forgot the post-campaign celebrity circuit but the minute she came on stage the left became completely unglued over the possibility that she might be the first female vice president.

Hell, the Dems elected a hybrid of Steve Urkel and Bill Ayers to be President.

Well in fairness he did choose the most brilliant member of the august US Senate to be his running mate. He's a very smart guy. Just ask him and he'll tell you he's probably a lot smarter than you are.

FLS -- A doctor friend of mine tells me that the pill is 100 percent effective and cannot fail. The reason it is not advertised as such is sort of cultural-political: women miss a day of taking the pill on accident or on purpose (or perhaps it could be vomited up).

It doesn't quite have the same lustre, but being on Olbermann's Worst Person list is to the right what being on Nixon's enemy list is to the left. Special kudos to Bristol for making it at such an early age.

I thought that the post was well written, esp. for a young woman who hasn't gone to college yet (not that colleges do all that well at teaching such). Maybe some day we will find out whether she is using a ghost writer, or getting help from her mother.

And, so, in the end, Bristol is the one who comes out looking good, and Keith ends up, again, looking like a tool.

Finally, I thought that she was pushing a combination of abstinence and birth control, not just the former. The goal is to keep from getting preggers, and it is unrealistic to expect young women as they leave their teen years to stay celibate until they marry, when that may not be until their mid to late 20s.

" It's also hard to believe that anyone takes abstinence seriously in an age of birth control."

Sex has other aspects other than reproductive. No? Is it not generally accepted that less sexual partners is more healthy than more? And for many Americans, a spiritual aspect to sexuality is recognized and appreciated.

Finally, how well has the whole condom approach worked out? 1,000,000 abortions a year in America.

I laughed like a loon where Bristol goes, "So you can just take that agricultural degree of yours, Mr Olberman, and stick it up your cow's arse." Hahahaha, that killed me. Or possibly I thought that part.

After the introduction of the pill, IUD's and easy access to condoms the number of abortions goes up.

Well, that's a book, but here are a few reasons:

1. The pill was introduced at around the same time that abortion became widespread and legal in states and then the nation. It's a coincidence.

2. The introduction of the pill and of abortion on demand along with much else created a society where more sex was to be had, with more people.

3. People don't get married when they are 14 any more, so they are going to have sex before marriage, which is more likely to lead to abortion especially since they are young, horny, and stupid. If you've never been in a situation where you were in the throes of passion but faced the possibility of unprotected sex and had to choose what to do, well, I guess I feel sorry for you.

4. People know that abortion is a backstop so they are more apt to have unprotected sex.

I could go on. Note that I oppose abortion, though not to the extent that most anti-abortion people do. I would choose not to allow it where I live but if you want to have it where you live, that's fine.

After the introduction of the pill, IUD's and easy access to condoms the number of abortions goes up. Why's that?

Because morals and character declined. When there are no longer consequences to your actions (fucking) there is a tendency to become lax.

When sex became a free for all, morality and the moral condemnation of unwed pregnancy or screwing around went out the window.

The stigma of aborting, murdering your unborn child was lessened and the act was even encouraged by entities like Planned Parenthood and others. It became easy and routine to kill your child and the consequences of unprotected sex became nothing more than a small inconvenience....to the Mother. To the child...well, that's another story.

People were more careful about how they had sex and more selective about who they had sex with, when the consequences of both actions were not tolerated or tacitly approved and when the ability to kill your unborn child was a serious serious issue.

"I could go on. Note that I oppose abortion, though not to the extent that most anti-abortion people do. I would choose not to allow it where I live but if you want to have it where you live, that's fine."

Me too.

The irony is that the very thing that these contraceptive devices was supposed to diminish, increases.

The Law of Unintended Consequences always seems to undermine the best intentions of our smartest social engineers.

DBQ -- I would argue that a little differently. Abortion is a terribly, awful, disgusting, sinful thing. But, even today, an overwhelming majority of people view abortion as either wrong or something they want very much to avoid.

I suggest that the pill changed everything, and that morality did not corrode but instead dissolved. There is no pressing, fundamental, primordial need to be chaste and practice abstinence now.

Many moral imperatives have been dissolved in this way over the centuries. It's progress. It's a good thing. It means we've overcome something.

What? You can't have a traditional family in this country? I got one. Come over sometime. We'll have Hamburger Helper.

More importantly, this traditional family was not around forever, Before that, the thing that dissolved was the large extended family. Before that, the clan. Before that, the tribe.

If you'd like, you can still find many glorious places on earth where tribes and clans are the predominant feature of social organization. Weirdly, I note that you don't spend much time in those places. Why is that?

Or do you argue that social organization reached its zenith in the United States in around 1950?

Lars -- We are disagreeing here about something vital. Clearly, what's happening is people are developing more autonomy. It goes tribe, clan, extended family, nuclear family, lonely individual. There's an order there. It's impossible for a society of autonomous individuals to be a clan, which is a complex order of people intertwined together hierarchically.

The traditional family that you speak of is a step in the process toward autonomy. You can argue that there is too much autonomy, or that autonomy is bad.

However, too much autonomy cannot lead to clannish behavior. That makes no cultural or logical sense. It's quite the opposite, in fact.

"What do you predict would occur in terms of the number of abortions?"

I think they would go up substantially. But I do not get where you are going with that. Is there a push to outlaw condoms?

"Also, how did multiple sexual partners enter into things?"

I brought this up because there are other aspects of sexuality and abstinence than disease and pregnancy. I think sexual partners exchange a bit of their souls. That can be a most wonderful experience, and helps explain to me why older, happy married couples finish each other's sentences and begin to look like each other.

But is can also be a horrible thing as people who we had sex with stick around in our hearts, minds, and souls even when we wish they did not.

Abstinence outside of marriage reduces or eliminates that problem. Sorry I was not more clear. I try to make my posts pithy, sometimes they are just pit.

Where is the sympathy for Bristol who was raised by the Worst person in the universe. She still seems to be an attractive young lady with a hard set of choices to be made. She made the first one with an A+ grade, and has a beautiful child for it, in not blaming the unborn person for the mistake made by the grown woman. That makes Bristol one of the best people in today's world.

Another unintended consequence of the sexual revoloution is the horrible weakening of the two parent family. This is important because coming from a single parent family is the best predictor of poverty for a child. It is also the best predictor that a boy will be incarcerated and a girl will have a child without a husband before she is 18. Thus, more poverty.

Race is not the best predictor of incarceration, family of origin status (single parent family) is.

So when someone talks about wanting to study poverty, you know that they are lying, hustling, or clueless. The scientific data is robust and has been replicated. Single parent families cause poverty and incarceration.

Another reason for the disappearance of the extended family as we know it from earlier times has nothing to do with sex, but rather economics.

As people become wealthier, they didn't need the bulwark or support of an extended family to economically survive.

Whereas in previous times, and specifically pre WWII, it was common to have several generations of family living in the same home and was common to have Aunts, Cousins and the occasional unattached bachelor or old maid living in also.

Economics was the reason. That and the lack of industrialized equipment that makes our lives easy today. It took many hands to get the work done and it took pooling resources to create a good life for all.

This is a cyclical thing and with the current extended downturn in the economy, we are seeing more and more people moving back "home" and recreating extended families with their own family or....making a small clan out of unrelated (genetically) relations.

Welfare and the government subsidy of single parents also removed the need for an extended family and even encouraged the dissolution of the nuclear/two parent family. If we were to severely restrict the access to welfare and limit the time that it could be collected, we would see a resurgence of family again.

"Olbermann is an idiot (Worst person indeed) but B. Palin is not a kid."

OMG.

Weren't we just talking about how this "worst person" thing was from something that Bristol did over TWO YEARS AGO and how Olbermann had entered some sort of time warp? Was that here or at Ace of Spades? I don't recall.

But I just figured it out!

Two years ago... Bristol Palin was a KID.

Can't you just see Olbermann obsessing about this for TWO YEARS just waiting for her to turn 20 so she's not a "teenager" any more?

Death by Slander Panels have been around since Jefferson ran against Adams in 1800. American political cartoons are mild these days compared to the first 125 years of them. Bristol and Momma Grizzlie are the first slander victims to use the internet to counterattack before daylight.

Olberman is giving off a creepy-stalker-schizoid vibe, the crazy old guy in the family ranting to anyone unlucky enough to sit next to him about his Theory of the Grand Conspiracy, involving aliens, Masons, impanted chips, anal probes, and Sarah Palin.

a) Bristol Palin's message as a spokesperson against teen pregnancy is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.

b) "a" is false, and therefore as a spokesperson against teen pregnancy, Bristol Palin is a fraud because in actuality she believes her life would more likely be worse right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.

Reasoning? Sure, you betcha. You see, Tripp is a unique individual who could not have been born earlier or later; thus, Bristol Palin's message that she should have waited to get pregnant would have resulted in Tripp's never existing. It would be some other kid, but not Tripp.

Mikio...Your last comment is a perfect example of a sophist's argument. Everybody understands what Bristol is saying, but you. And sophists were generally thought of to be the worse persons in the world.

Why don't you try substantiating your claim by identifying the alleged flaw(s)in my argument instead of being a predictable conservative and only spewing forth ad hominems? Because if that's all you've got, it's nothing.

Mikio...Bristol needed to marry a good man with a job before she started into 20 years of mother duties with no father in the house adding income, child care and love. Your argument only focused on Bristol advising other 18 year olds to use contraception as being an admission on her part that she hates her child...or if she does in fact love her child, that her advice is then faked advice. Any fool can plainly see that she got herself knocked up by believing in a young man professing his eternal love and marriage in the near future. That is what she is warning other girls not to do to themselves. That has nothing at all to do with her love or hate for her baby boy. What were you thinking?

Your first flaw is making assumptions that you cannot prove or substantiate and assuming them to be facts.

You have no idea what Bristol thinks about the birth of her son or what she speculates her life would be like with or without him. You are imagining what she thinks and feels and trying to use your imaginings as facts in a logical argument. Can't be done.

Your second flaw is that you have mistated, distored, falsified what Bristol's message is about what her life would be like (better/worse) based on your first faulty assumption of what she thinks which is based upon your OWN biases.

Bringing your own personal biases into the argument flaws it fatally, since you cannot reason dispastionatly.

@Mikio:I think Bristol's argument can go like this (I'm only slightly paraphrasing what I think Bristol would say):

Yes, I had a child when I was a teenager, too young, but he turned out wonderful. My family is supportive of me, so I'm lucky on both counts.

But before you decide to do this, be forewarned: It ain't easy. I'm lucky because my Mom's rich and famous now. The baby daddy's a dick, though. Don't look at me and think having a baby as a teenager is your ticket to fame, or DWTS.

Think about how you're going to support your baby, how your family is going to react. Think about where you'd like to be in 10 years. Having a baby now changes all that. Especially if that significant other in your life decides to split on you.

Will there be a father figure in the house? Do you mind getting up twice a night for the first year or two changing diapers? And work a job, while trying to go to school? Think you can do it alone?

Seven Machos,A doctor friend of mine tells me that the pill is 100 percent effective and cannot fail. The reason it is not advertised as such is sort of cultural-political: women miss a day of taking the pill on accident or on purpose (or perhaps it could be vomited up).

The OB/GYN I dated about 20 years ago told me the same thing.

She said that when one of her patients got pregnant and claimed not to have missed any pills, she'd reply, "Bullshit. How many did you REALLY miss?"

Admitting that would mean admitting that women are responsible for their condition, and that can't happen. It's always MEN who are to blame, dammit!

My understanding is that the early versions of the pill were more reliable because they had higher doses of hormones. However, those higher doses also made the pill more dangerous; you had healthy young women dropping dead of errant blood clots.

The modern pills are safer because they have lower doses of hormones (though clots are still a potential side effect, especially for women who smoke.) But that means they also have a higher failure rate.

traditionalguy… Your argument only focused on Bristol advising other 18 year olds to use contraception as being an admission on her part that she hates her child...or if she does in fact love her child, that her advice is then faked advice.

Not even close. Dammit, I can’t stand how tedious this.

Nowhere did I suggest she hates her child or does anything less than love her child more than anything in the world because, believe it or not, even given that, it’s possible to love one’s childless independence MORE! Hopefully this is the road block in your conservative mind I’ve identified. Grok this and we’ll have cleared the first hurdle in your thinking toward understanding my argument.

Dust Bunny Queen… You have no idea what Bristol thinks about the birth of her son or what she speculates her life would be like with or without him. You are imagining what she thinks and feels and trying to use your imaginings as facts in a logical argument. Can't be done.

You’re right that I can’t read her mind, but you’re wrong that one can’t lay out the options and even correctly reduce them to two options: more likely than and less likely than.

Your job is to show those aren’t the only two options or that those options are somehow inherently flawed in their description.

Incidentally, I’m aware there’s a third option of equally likely which is fine in most cases, but not for advocates or activists for a particular cause. Such neutrality undermines their advocacy and renders them frauds as well -- not as strongly of course, but it’s still strong enough that the label applies.

Trooper York…Plus Mikio, Pearl Harbor Day is coming up so it might be best to lay low for a while… How's that for an ad hominem?… If Admiral Yamamoto was awake he would say that is racist.

Why? What might happen? I was born in SoCal, served six years active duty in the U.S. army, got an honorable discharge and have lived here in Louisville, KY for seventeen years. Why should I lay low, Trooper Dick York?

Brian…I think Bristol's argument can go like this…

That’s nice, but if you think you’re teaching me or informing me of anything, you’re not. Point out precisely in my argument how anything you said debunks or undermines it. You can’t because it doesn’t.

I am confused, now that I give this thought. I recall the post on the other Palin girl calling some guy a fag, and this blog lecturing a writer for commenting on that by calling into question why older people are reading some young girl's Facebook anyway.

So, I'm trying to keep track of the rules. If a Palin child behaves badly to the homos on Facebook, we shouldn't even know about it because it's poor form to read her Facebook, and probably creepy as well. But if a Palin child manages to respond to her critics with aplomb, we should be reading it and offering praise.

It's not just missing a pill that can lower that effectiveness rate; it's important to take them within the same time frame every day (I've been told there's about a three-hour window for variation). So it can get tricky. Say a woman takes it with her morning juice, getting ready for work at 7 am daily, but on the weekends, she goes out, maybe sleeps late and doesn't get to it till 11. And she's possibly more likely to have had sex over the weekend - right when she's lowered that defense a bit. So that's something doctors should explain clearly when prescribing birth control pills.

Of course, the Palins' decision to throw Levi Johnston under the bus after the election has nothing to do with her seeming hypocritical for preaching premarital abstinence.

This is interesting, watching conservatives attempting to engage reason.

Another faulty assumption: That increased autonomy requires less intimately connected networks. I guess the possibility of deciding to simply respect the differing, individual decisions of someone you nevertheless remain closely connected to, just can't seem to penetrate the Althousian-paleoconservative mind.

But it is fascinating to watch your limited worldviews at work. These tidbits make me feel like an anthropologist studying another primate species. And it's fun watching Seven Effeminates (I mean, Seven Machos) engage his liberal side with y'all once he feels safely out of the view of the non-Milquetoast lefties.

Oh I got it Mikio-san. But it was just a little dribbler. Much like Dick York himself.

I don't know what it is with Liberal guys trying to diss conservatives by comparing them to gay guys like it is such a bad thing. Just like Bouton in the last Palin thread comparing me to the kid crying about Britney Spears on the internet. Comparing someone to a gay dude is not really an insult. Pick up your game dude.

Well except for comparing someone to Andrew Sullivan. But that is just because he is a git not that he is a poofter.

I don't have problems with a failed practitioner of abstinence such as Bristol Palin preaching abstinence. I just think it would be more credible if, instead of living off her mommie's millions and close political and media connections, she was living in a trailer with curlers in her hair while ironing shirts and bitching and moaning about the kid that she doesn't have the resources to take care of.

For her to preach abstinence as if childbirth had, at least in her case, any drawbracks, is the dumbest and most disingenuous (and if I may, celebrity-seeking) act that someone with as little talent as she has could hope to come up with. But keep milking it. This is America and you have (or at least your mom has) true believers, after all. Facts and a true sense of purpose be damned.

Funny the word "canard" has become an issue. Despite coming from a quite educated family, I never new the word, as used by Bristol, myself until getting involved in blogging a few years ago. I only knew the aeronautical definition.

Trooper York...Oh I got it Mikio-san... I don't know what it is with Liberal guys trying to diss conservatives by comparing them to gay guys like it is such a bad thing.

Dick York was gay? I've never heard that before. And no, you obviously did not get it because the diss half of the ambiguous meaning (in conjunction with the non-diss half referring to actor Dick York as likeable by which I meant no irony) simply involved the name "Dick" -- you know, as in "You're a dick"? How can you not get that? Maybe you did get it and were just desperately reaching for this gay angle.

I agree with you, by the way, that it's idiotic calling someone gay as a serious putdown and additionally hypocritical coming from a liberal. However, I didn't do that for the reason I just explained and you're attacking a straw man.

And you, too, as a typical right-winger think merely saying something makes it true. You’re familiar with a few names of logical fallacies, but you have no idea what they mean or even if you do you can’t show how they pertain to my argument.

I explained the rationale of my argument at the outset and subsequently as well to flesh it out. You conservatives should try this sometime. Of course, it would have to be in another thread since obviously my argument here is so devastating there is no defense for it -- none that any of you has been able to show, anyway.

Libtard: it would have to be in another thread since obviously my argument here is so devastating there is no defense for it

This should be fun:

Show how Bristol Palin's message... is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist. is not a strawman.

Show how Which is it? a) Bristol Palin's message as a spokesperson against teen pregnancy is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.

b) "a" is false, and therefore as a spokesperson against teen pregnancy, Bristol Palin is a fraud because in actuality she believes her life would more likely be worse right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.

Libtard: my argument here is so devastating there is no defense for it -- none that any of you has been able to show, anyway.

You've made 1 argument.: "Tripp is a unique individual who could not have been born earlier or later; thus, Bristol Palin's message that she should have waited to get pregnant would have resulted in Tripp's never existing. It would be some other kid, but not Tripp."

I don't know why you think such an obvious conclusion is devastating. You claim water is wet and expect us to be impressed?

And your other claim: Bristol Palin's message... is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist is not an argument, its a lie. Else, support it.

Uhm, you are the one who started with Bristol Palin's message is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist without anything to even support such an idiotic position.

So it looks as if "you think merely saying something makes it true" is simple projetion.

But my bad. We're still waiting for you to look up Strawman and False Dilemma....

That said, my gut instinct, this time, w/r/t to Bristol, is that she made the right choice at the right time. I think her mom can be too thin-skinned, especially given her aspirations, and often enough makes the wrong determination. Bristol is a separate person and a separate case, and I think she likely made the best choice here, in this instance. This is not to say that I think if Olbermann strikes back, she shouldn't sit it out and just let him stew in his own frustrated juices. I suspect she ought do just that.

That said, what do I know? I live in an entirely different world than either of their respective worlds, or even their shared one.

fls: Alaska's had governors for fifty years, yet Palin's the only one to face "frivolous lawsuits"?

In that quantity, yes.

Imagine what I could do to your life if there was a loophole that allowed me to sue you without consequence. I could easily bankrupt you within a year, and have you spinning your wheels in court 24/7. You wouldn't be able to run a business, much less a state.

But its all good. We're going to use the same tactic on your people. Don't whine when your guys are hounded out of office.

You can't be excused for being selfish little prick, Libtard. Palin resigned because the constant lawsuits by democrats were hampering her ability to govern Alaska. What you call "quiting" we call "sacrifice".

Fen…Show how “Bristol Palin's message... is that her life would more likely be better right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.” is not a strawman.

It’s not a straw man, because it's optional. I’m not asserting it’s necessarily true. I said it’s either that one or “b”. You omitted “b” either out of an honest lack of understanding or you did it intentionally and deceptively to act dumber than you are for the purpose of annoying me because that’s the only tool you think you have at your disposal.

Show how [“a” vs. “b”] is not a false dilemma.

It’s not a false dilemma because as I already explained to Dust Bunny Queen, the two options are quite logical and simple: more likely than vs. less likely than. If you think that logical dichotomy is a false dilemma, the onus is on you to show how. It's so basic to me as to be axiomatic. Furthermore, if you want to see why a third option of equally likely was left out, scroll up and read my response to her.

You've made 1 argument.: "Tripp is a unique individual…”

Wrong. That “obvious” sentence of mine as you found it -- thank you very much -- was not the argument, it was the supportive reasoning for my argument -- namely, the either/or assertion of “a” and “b” above it. I could’ve included more supportive reasoning, but it seemed unnecessary because the rest should’ve been obvious as well.

It simply involves the proverbial fork in the road of one’s life. In Bristol Palin’s case, this particular fork has only two prongs: the road where she became a pregnant teen with Tripp and the other road where she didn’t. Very, very simple. And it’s simply a matter of speculating on her part which was the better of the two roads she should’ve taken. That’s all. You’re all objecting to it because as conservatives, you don’t like the way I framed it which I’m fully aware of and it was intended to fuck you all up. I knew the wording would trap you in your conservative beliefs and that you’d find it difficult if not impossible to spot the spin, if there was any. Frankly, I don’t think there was any spin and that’s what makes it so devastating in its uncomfortably truthful impact for you all.

The previous paragraph was kind of to everyone. As for you, Fen, that’s all I’m going to bother with you. You’re clearly such an idiot, which isn’t necessarily your fault, or are playing an idiot purely to be annoying that it’s not worth the tedium in either case of explaining this simple stuff. Here's your cue to lie and claim I'm running off not having made any points.

Only I bet Bristol has a more positive take on it than that. (I get to guess what she thinks too, like others commenting who think they know what this person thinks. <--- This person who in reality represents an alien species to many of the blue commenters.)

She made some bad choices. She's had a boatload of experiences other young girls her age haven't had. She's famous because her mom is famous ... And some big mouth big name guy says a really crazy horrible thing about her on national TV and you think that's okay?

I often tell people that what other people say about you and how they treat you says more about them than it does about you.

It’s not a false dilemma because two options are quite logical and simple

Again, an argument can be both logical and simple and still be false dilemma.

You simply don't understand the terms. Look them up. Seriously.

that’s what makes it so devastating in its uncomfortably truthful impact for you all.

You'll have to explain what it is thats so devastating...

it’s simply a matter of speculating on her part which was the better of the two roads she should’ve taken. That’s all.

No, you assumed to know her belief. And you present no evidence to back it up: Bristol Palin is a fraud because in actuality she believes her life would more likely be worse right now if her son Tripp didn't exist.

MadisonMan: My special scorn is reserved for politicians who quit in the middle of a term for no good reason other than things are difficult

So, because you [wrongly] believe Palin quit, her kids are fair game. And of course, you have to add another qualifier ["no good reason other than things are difficult"] to justify giving a pass to Biden, Obama, et al.

You're such a hypocrite on this Madison. You raised a stink when Chelsea was "pimped out" and when Obama's kids were spotlighted. But find all kinds of excuses to stare down at your shoelaces when Palin's kids are attacked.

I just want to apologize to Fen. It was arrogant and dickish of me to call him an idiot when what I meant was he was being obnoxious. Sorry, Fen. Anyway, in between here and online chatting for I don't know how many hours now, this computer screen is driving me nuts.

May be back here tomorrow. May not. I'm fairly sick of this topic by now, aren't you all?

Wow. The MSM is really out to get her -- they concoct a story of her leaving office -- that is, quitting -- and report this false story. I am so ashamed! I bought the story hook, line and sinker.

The only thing I don't understand is why Gov. Palin didn't set the record straight. It should have been so easy to tell people she was still Governor, and that she hadn't quit! What a stumble for a politician to make!

Wait, aren't you the Great Libtard Hope? Rushing to a friday night thread on Bristol Palin, to set your diabolical rhetorical trap on the stoopid althouse hillbillies?

Mikio: I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!

Because all the bright ones are drawn to a 150+ comment thread on Bristol Friday night...

Next time you light up, trying taping yourself and review it when you sober up. You'll find that all your sharp insights (like "Tripp is a unique individual who could not have been born earlier or later") are "devastatingly" pathetic.

Really, why do you have your head up Bristol's uterus? What is it with people like you and Oblermann and Sulivan?

Well, Fen. I've never met anyone who was quite so barbaric as to insult another person for the "offensive" act of apologizing to him, but I guess you're just a small enough person to invent such an abnormal and warped behavioral trait.

If I were you, I suppose I might resent someone acting respectfully to me as well. Thanks for broadcasting your preference for being treated in a nasty way. Since it's not something that normal people would expect, we appreciate you for informing us of your strange ways.

My special scorn is reserved for politicians who quit in the middle of a term for no good reason other than things are difficult.

MadMan - it wasn't just difficult but impossible. Should Palin have bankrupted herself defending from dozens of scurrilous ethics charges that are all too easy to file in Alaska? We all know those filing came from the DNC, but your mendaciousness didn't cover that little tidbit, now did it?

This comment thread has fallen short of the 200+ Palin Standard. Bristol still has a way to go to match her Momma's celebrity level. But if Momma was still Alaska's governor the Dems filed ethics complaints about Bristol alone would have exceeded 200 by now. Momma Sarah was already declared the worst person in the ethics world for daring to be a possible candidate for anything. Dem hate is a many splendored thing.

Mikio Chimpoko-san said.....Dick York was gay? I've never heard that before. And no, you obviously did not get it because the diss half of the ambiguous meaning (in conjunction with the non-diss half referring to actor Dick York as likeable by which I meant no irony) simply involved the name "Dick" -- you know, as in "You're a dick"? How can you not get that? Maybe you did get it and were just desperately reaching for this gay angle.

I agree with you, by the way, that it's idiotic calling someone gay as a serious putdown and additionally hypocritical coming from a liberal. However, I didn't do that for the reason I just explained and you're attacking a straw man."

Well buddy, when you delve into the area of pop-culture references, you should at least know what that person is most famous for.....doncha think?

I mean if you make a Charlie Sheen joke hookers and cocaine should be in there somewhere.

The fact of the matter is that insinuating that conservatives are gay is the stock response of most of the loony left. Jeremy for one is famous for it because the worse insult he can think of is implying that you are gay. Liberal loons like Anderson Cooper and Keith Olbermann love to use the term "Tea Baggers" as do several of the leftists on these threads. It is really quite silly. And since you seem like a silly leftist I just assumed that was what you were doing.

I sorry that I assumed that you have more than one layer to your onion.

Mikio Chimpoko-san said.....Dick York was gay? I've never heard that before. And no, you obviously did not get it because the diss half of the ambiguous meaning (in conjunction with the non-diss half referring to actor Dick York as likeable by which I meant no irony) simply involved the name "Dick" -- you know, as in "You're a dick"? How can you not get that? Maybe you did get it and were just desperately reaching for this gay angle.

I agree with you, by the way, that it's idiotic calling someone gay as a serious putdown and additionally hypocritical coming from a liberal. However, I didn't do that for the reason I just explained and you're attacking a straw man."

Well buddy, when you delve into the area of pop-culture references, you should at least know what that person is most famous for.....doncha think?

I mean if you make a Charlie Sheen joke hookers and cocaine should be in there somewhere.

The fact of the matter is that insinuating that conservatives are gay is the stock response of most of the loony left. Jeremy for one is famous for it because the worse insult he can think of is implying that you are gay. Liberal loons like Anderson Cooper and Keith Olbermann love to use the term "Tea Baggers" as do several of the leftists on these threads. It is really quite silly. And since you seem like a silly leftist I just assumed that was what you were doing.

I sorry that I assumed that you have more than one layer to your onion.

Palin: “I resigned because of frivolous ethics complaints filed through a loophole in Alaska’s laws that enabled opponents of my Administration to pin down over 80% of the time of government workers, forced me to spend my own money to defend myself while governor, and cost the state over two million dollars."

"It's that our administration is so stymied and paralyzed because of a political game that has been chosen to be played by critics who have discovered loopholes in the ethics reform that I championed that allows them to continually, continually bombard the state with frivolous ethics-violation charges, with lawsuits, with these fishing expeditions. We win the lawsuits, we win the ethics charges, we win all that — but it comes at such great cost. The distraction, the waste of time and money, the public's time and money — it's insane to continue down this road. And Alaskans who have paid attention to what's going on, they understand that."

"You guys are incredibly lame. No Palin wrote that. It was ghostwritten. When is the last time this kid strung together an entire sentence let alone:"

Ghost written? Really? You've got other examples of Bristol's writing to compare to? The somewhat overblown vocabulary is actually a good reason to think that Bristol is the one who wrote it. As Beth said... she's been studying for her SATs. A ghost writer would try to make it sound like a teenager and would almost certainly have used simpler vocabulary.

So Mikio, how and why did you wash out of the Army? Quit or was canned? Any prison involved? DADT come too late for you maybe? Million-dollar injury? Are you so stupid it took you two tours to figure out you didn't want to go career? Or what?

Clinton set up a PAC to collect money from supporters to pay his legal bills. Palin was precluded from that ability by the Alaska legal system so she had to pay the bills on her own and also take time from her job to deal with the lawsuits which were nonsense charges and dismissed. She still had to defend against them though. Bubba used his PAC to pay the bills and his assistants to deal with the lawyers.